1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to recording information on an optical recording medium having a plurality of recording layers, and more particularly, to an optical recording method which can save a test time at the time of recording information, an evaluation indicator acquiring method, an optical recording apparatus, a micro CPU device, and a computer program.
2. Description of the Related Technology
As known in the art, in an optical recording apparatus for recording data on an optical recording medium such as a known DVD by the use of a laser beam, when recording data on a predetermined recording medium, a recording condition suitable for the recording medium is generally obtained by performing a test recording operation to a test recording area in the recording medium before actually recording data on the recording medium.
However, with increasing requirement for increase in speed and capacity of the optical recording apparatus, when data are recorded on a multi-layered optical recording medium having a plurality of recording layers, it is necessary to obtain recording pulse conditions corresponding to the recording layers, respectively, due to differences in recording characteristics such as recording sensitivity, light reflectance, and thermal conductivity between the recording layers.
As a known technology for obtaining the recording pulse conditions, as shown in FIGS. 25 and 26, a method is generally used, in which a data table recording the recording pulse conditions for excellently recording data on the respective recording layers in accordance with conditions such as a recording speed every type of recording mediums is stored in advance in a memory of a recording drive (optical recording apparatus) and the recording pulse conditions corresponding to the types, the recording layers, and the recording speeds of the recording mediums are read out and set from the data table at the time of actually recording data on the recording mediums, thereby recording the data on the recording mediums.
In consideration of individual difference or non-uniformity of the recording drive or dependency of a laser on a temperature, a method of adjusting only a condition of the recording laser power in a test recording operation performed before the actual data recording operation is also generally used.
Patent Document 1: JP-A-2005-100610
Patent Document 2: JP-A-2003-22532
Patent Document 3: JP-A-2004-171740
Patent Document 4: JP-A-2004-247024
Patent Document 5: WO2002-029791
Patent Document 6: JP-A-2003-178448
However, in the known art, since the burden on the finite memory capacity of the recording drive is great and a high-capacity memory causes increase in cost of the recording drive, there is a first problem that the number of recording mediums to cope with is limited.
There is a second problem that it is not possible to satisfactorily cope with the non-uniformity in characteristics of the recording mediums and the recording drives, which cannot be compensated for by the use of only the recording laser power and it is not possible to satisfactorily cope with “unknown types of optical recording mediums” such as optical recording mediums not previously memorized in the recording drive and optical recording mediums come to the market after a recording drive comes to the market, which are partially coped with in the form of firm-up.
Accordingly, development of the technology has been required which makes it possible to acquire the optimum recording condition in a short time every recording speed depending upon characteristics of recording mediums and recording drives on which data should be recorded.